Cooling off with le blaireau

A cold and rainy day in Vancouver might have been a good day for your author to complete his series of posts on Greg LeMond (see part 1, part 2, and part 3) , or to perhaps do some further research on an upcoming feature on the 1983 Tour de France and the arrival of the Colombians (much to the chagrin of Laurent Fignon, apparently).

Instead it was an opportunity for blog maintenance (finally replacing the lost pictures from a very early feature on the Col de la Croix de Fer), which was a reminder that le grimpeur first hit the blog-waves in January of 2007. While looking for the lost pictures, one classic shot jumped out of the file: a favourite of Cor Vos, part of a feature done for Pez Cycling News.

The picture captures Bernard Hinault at a light-hearted moment; for such a serious rider, there were – at least in this photo – some brief moments of levity. Whether he had words for the water thrower, though, is left undisclosed in the photo. If Hinault’s expression subsequently turned sour, perhaps the words he uttered might not have been fit to print anyway – in any language.

Hinault cools off.

Back in the archives, too, is a feature on le blaireau and his climbing methods. For those readers who have not been following this blog from its inception, perhaps you may enjoy the article while the work on new features continues…